Another full and exhausting day. It feels like I spend hours and days, and waste so much of my life doing tiresome admin and filing. Endless record keeping of my art; and for uncertain reward. Few artists even bother to photograph their work. Perhaps my record keeping is a ridiculous obsession? No! Record keeping is a vital part of art itself. We know of so much art and so many artists only because they were the few who did keep such records.
Here's my art photography set up:
The new lights really help hugely. They didn't exactly work perfectly today. One leg refused to fit, and I had to get the chisel out and carve its wood into shape. The tripods were not right this time. The screw which locks the vertical movement broke the plastic housing, and still would not hold the meagre weight of the camera rods (not visible here, I used the camera to take the photo, but you can see one distant tripod).
The tripods too are flimsy, and too easily knocked. I searched for a laser level which had a tripod-screw-pass through, but no such thing exists. I need a way to lock the tripods in place, and lock their exact orientation.
Still, I managed to take 20 or 30 photos, to 'scan' four paintings at about 370dpi. These gave the best quality and best colour reproduction of any photographed work to date. I was always particularly unhappy with the strong blue cast on many works, particularly notable on 'Hand of Destiny'. See here the new yellow, and very accurate, version, and the older blue version:
It barely looks like the same painting.
Even with my much more powerful new PC, it struggles were a mere four images to stitch together. I don't know how I might cope with a larger image.
It's also the release day for 'Cat Covid!'. June Holland congratulated my on Twitter, which was nice, and Deb bought the album which went live on Bandcamp today. I'm blessed with such support. The rest of the world ignored it all, despite much work at trying to convince it otherwise. Local radio was particularly disappointing. The station 'This is the Cat', broadcasting a mere 500m from my current location, uniquely seems to shun local arts and artists (or just me?). I can't explain it.
Bad artists have many friends and supporters, through a combination of pity, and the knowledge that they are no threat and may need help. Good artists have only enemies: jealous rivals, critics who always point out greener grasses and better alternatives, and an indifferent public who remain unconvinced or wary of those who, by flaws as much as merits, transcend or bypass the social order. All artists, however, may attract the occasional adoring stranger. These aspire to be like the artist, hope for escape to that joyous post-arrival-of-Godot paradise, where the ideal artist lives.
The day has flown on this technical work. I need more days to update my website with the new images, prepare the next 'Drive' single, and do a dozen more jobs that are not painting, when I'm starting to want to paint. Tonight we're off to the Earthly paradise of a new Open Mic event in Congleton.
Onwards.
